Sunday, June 08, 2008

Neck Pains and Near Misses

I am perched on the sofa with my laptop on my lap, and a crick in my neck. Have just returned from Sunday morning yoga (I told Richard he gives a whole new meaning to easy as Sunday morning) and an inexplicable pain in my shoulder. And I find it difficult to turn my head.

Last night I was out with good old Vij (the young one, not the old one konon superstar) and we watched Prince Caspian, which was enjoyable even if they did change the story and play up the supposed hidden animosities between Peter and Caspian and invent a romance between Susan and Caspian and make Peter so much less than he was in the book. Why, I wonder. Anyways, the movie finished at 2.30 in the morning, and I got back around 3.

So there I was lolling in bed, too lazy to get up, reading my book, when I came across this passage:

"Why do we practise Yoga?"

I had a teacher once ask that question during a particularly challenging Yoga class, back in New York. We were all bent into these exhausting sideways triangles, and the teacher was making us hold the position longer than any of us would have liked.

"Why do we practise Yoga?" he asked again. "Is it so we can become a little bendier than our neighbours? Or is there perhaps a higher purpose?"

I smiled. And then gasped. Because I had remembered.

Oh crap, yoga class. 10.30.

What time was it now? 10.10.

20 minutes to get from PJ to Bangsar.

I wondered whether to give it a miss but the thought of my Yoga Nazi instructor had me leaping out of bed to the bathroom for a quick face wash and throwing on some crumpled clothes all anyhow and speeding off.

Of course, it being a lazy Sunday morning, all cars were driving at a leisurely pace not in keeping with my frantic breakneck need to get to class in time. I overtook dangerously, car careening sideways.

I parked illegally and all but ran to the centre. Class had not started yet but everyone was either lying or sitting on their yoga mats, in repose. One girl with pants like a belly dancer, was meditating fiercely. And I mean fiercely. She turned out to be a very advanced student who had mastered that holy of holies, the wheel (which I was able to do when I was 14, but sadly, not since then). She was bendier than the rest of us, and took off straight after class without the customary glass of juice (I have a beetroot ginger concoction which is to die for). I don't think she was very friendly. But whatever.

My heart which had stopped racing, started right up again when Richard took us through these vigorous sun salutations (A), which is a variation on the sun salutations, and added the triangle pose in between for hip opening purposes. Being the least bendy in the class, the hip opening poses are a real challenge for me.

Anyways, after class, pouring with sweat, I had my juice and then took off for home.

Usually I feel great after class. But today, I'm in pain.

I wonder if it has anything to do with the late night and the mad rush to get there. I need to set the alarm for Sundays. Or confine my classes to the weekdays.

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About Me

I am a product of long corridors, empty sunlit rooms, upstairs indoor silences, attics explored in solitude, distant noises of gurgling cisterns and pipes and the noise of wind under the tiles. Also, of endless books. (CS Lewis)